PINACE.E 



17 



ularly divided by shallow fissures into broad flat ridges covered with large thin closely 

 appressed scales. Wood weak, brittle, coarse-grained, not durable, light brown, with 

 orange-colored or often 

 nearly white sapwood, 

 often composing nearly 

 half the trunk; large- 

 ly manufactured into 

 lumber, used for con- 

 struction and the inte- 

 rior finish of buildings. 

 Distribution. Cape 

 May, New Jersey 

 through southern Del- 

 aware and eastern 

 Maryland and south- 

 ward to the shores of 

 Indian River and Tam- 

 pa Bay, Florida, west- 

 ward to middle North 

 Carolina and through Fig. 18 



South Carolina and 



Georgia and the eastern Gulf states to the Mississippi River, extending into southern 

 Tennessee and northeastern Mississippi; west of the Mississippi River from southern 

 Arkansas and the southwestern part of Oklahoma through western Louisiana to the shores 

 of the Gulf of Mexico, and through eastern Texas to the valley of the Colorado River; on 

 the Atlantic coast often springing up on lands exhausted by agriculture; west of the Mis- 

 sissippi River one of the most important timber-trees, frequently growing in nearly pure 

 forests on rolling uplands. 



14. Pinus rigida Mill. Pitch Pine. 



Leaves stout, rigid, dark yellow-green, marked on the 3 faces by many rows of stomata, 

 3 '-5' long, standing stiffly and at right angles with the branch, deciduous during their 



second year. Flowers: male in 

 short crowded spikes, yellow or 

 rarely purple ; female often clustered 

 and raised on short stout stems, 

 light green more or less tinged with 

 rose color. Fruit ovoid, acute at 

 apex, nearly sessile, often clus- 

 tered, l'-3' long, becoming light 

 brown, with thin flat scales armed 

 with recurved rigid prickles, often 

 remaining on the branches for ten 

 or twelve years; seeds nearly tri- 

 angular, full and rounded on the 

 sides, I' long, with a thin dark 

 brown mottled roughened shell and 

 wings broadest below the middle, 

 gradually narrowed to the very 

 ^^^ oblique apex, f ' long, ^' wide. 



Fig. 19 A tree, 50-60 or rarely 100 



high, with a short trunk occasion- 

 ally 3 in diameter, thick contorted often pendulous branches covered with thick much 

 roughened bark, forming a round-topped thick head, often irregular and picturesque, and 



